A $520 million hybrid RIA that hopes to become a super-OSJ in the Gulf South region has landed at LPL Financial, severing its longstanding ties with Wells Fargo.
Although Goss Wealth Management -- based in Baton Rouge, La., with another office in New Orleans -- only has four financial advisors currently, the firm is hoping LPL's hybrid RIA platform will help it attract breakaway wirehouse brokers, says the firm's president and founder Jerry Goss.
"After we went independent, we saw that there were a lot of guys in wirehouses who wanted to go independent but didn't to do it alone and wanted support," Goss says. "We spent a lot of time looking at the alternatives and we thought LPL's platform, technology and resources would be very attractive."
A legacy A.G. Edwards firm, Goss Wealth Management transitioned first to the Wells Fargo branch network and then joined the company's FiNet network two years ago. LPL's self-clearing capability and open-architecture structure were also factors in Goss Wealth Management's ' decision to switch affiliations, according to Goss.
SUPER-OSJ AMBITIONS
As a "super" -- or extra-large -- office of supervisory jurisdiction for LPL, Goss would supervise and provides business services to other independent advisors for a fee. The firm hopes to expand eastward along the Gulf Coast and into the Florida Panhandle, Goss says.
"We think that that we can offer brokers the best of both the independent and branch wirehouse worlds, what we're calling a 'wirehouse lite' solution," he adds.
The independent hybrid RIA advisor model "has not yet substantially penetrated" the Gulf South region, Steve Pirigyi, LPL's executive vice president of business development, said in a statement.
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